


braids

by aperfectsong



Series: backbone [3]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Pre-Season/Series 01, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 05:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6143743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aperfectsong/pseuds/aperfectsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four conversations between Veronica and Lilly (ghost Lilly and otherwise). Spans season 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	braids

**Author's Note:**

> I was just thinking -- for Veronica’s hair to be the length it is in the beginning of season 1 (August), she would have had to cut it so much shorter the previous January after Shelley Pomeroy's party. The image of it in my head is so sad.

1.

 

Lilly wasn’t staring at Veronica in the mirror that morning after as she cut long curls from her head. In the sink, they coiled around each other like sleeping serpents. Instead, Veronica looked back at a reflection that wasn’t quite her reflection.  

 

Lilly is there later though: touching the uneven ends of Veronica’s hair with her ghost fingertips, her sad, ethereal eyes holding tears.

 

“It’s so short, Ronnie,” she is saying. “You could have gone to my hairdresser. Petra would have just charged it to the account. She’s good like that. That was the kind of change you needed, not this.”

 

“You’re dead,” Veronica tells her.  “You aren’t here.”

 

“That doesn’t mean I’m not here for you,” Lilly says. “Talk to me.”

 

“That’s exactly what it means, Lilly!” Veronica says, swatting her away.

 

Veronica puts her hands over her face. She shakes as she sobs, like she did when Lilly died, like Lilly is dying all over again, like she will never get used to it.

 

 

 

2.

 

When Veronica finally lets herself finally think about the kiss outside the Camelot, Lilly is there, lying on her back on Veronica’s twin bed and looking up at the ceiling.

 

“So, you kissed my boyfriend?” Lilly says as she loosely braids a strand of her own hair. When she was alive, she was always moving her hands or her feet. Logan was the same way, always in motion. Veronica remembers movie night with the two of them and Duncan. She would get distracted by the deep reserves of untapped energy seeping out through their fingertips as they made excuses to touch, while Veronica and Duncan held themselves so still she could hardly feel their breathing.

 

Now she watches as dead Lilly lets the braid slip through her fingers, as she lets the strands unwind from around each other.

 

“It’s not like that,” Veronica says. She sits down on the edge of the bed. Her hands clasp one another and rest, immobile.

 

“I know.” Lilly laughs. “For one, I’m dead. For two, Duncan was so wrong for you. You, Veronica Mars, need passion.” Lilly says this with a flourish, with that spark Veronica can’t seem to find in anyone else, no matter how hard she looks.

 

“I miss you,” Veronica says.

 

“I know,” dead Lilly says.

 

Then dead Lilly isn’t there at all. Veronica is sitting on her bed all by herself thinking about trust and what it cost her.

 

Veronica can’t talk to Wallace about it.

 

Dead Lilly doesn’t reappear.

 

Instead, she tells herself _it didn’t happen_ so many times that she starts to believe it.

 

 

 

 

3.

 

The second time Veronica sips vodka from a water bottle makes her remember the first:

 

Veronica and her dad came in from soccer practice to Lianne lying on the couch watching Golden Girls reruns. Veronica went to the refrigerator for a bottle of water, unscrewed the cap and took a big gulp. She realized two things at once as she swallowed: she was coughing and it wasn’t water.

 

“Slow down, honey,” her dad said and set down a stack of envelopes on the counter.

 

But Veronica’s face gave something away. Her dad took the bottle from her hand and raised it to his nose.

 

“Lianne,” he said. “Our fourteen-year-old just drank from one of your water bottles.”

 

On the couch, her mother feigned ignorance.

 

“I need to talk to your mother,” her dad told her. She didn’t like the way he said _your mother,_ like she belonged only to Veronica, like he hadn’t chosen her as his wife at all and it was in fact Veronica who was to blame. “Why don’t you go outside and call Lilly to come get you? Maybe you can spend the night.”

 

Veronica saw a look of glassy acquiescence on her mother’s face and realized suddenly it looked familiar there. She continued to see it, even after her father ushered her out the front door.  

 

Veronica, still in her dirty soccer uniform, still thirsty, still wearing her backpack, took out her cell phone to call Lilly. Lilly answered on the second ring.

 

“Ronnie?” Lilly said. “Did you win your game?”

 

“Can I come over?” Veronica asked.

 

“Sure,” Lilly said, her voice suddenly serious. “I’ll see if Celeste will be my unwilling passenger. Or one of the maids. I’ll be there in 10,” she said.

 

Veronica waited on the steps until Lilly pulled up with her mother riding shotgun.  

 

She could still taste the alcohol on her tongue. The idea of it made her dizzy, but she opened the door and got into the car. She was pretty sure she couldn’t be drunk from one sip. It was more the knowledge of it that made her second guess each movement her body made. No one spoke, except for Mrs. Kane, to tell Lilly to slow down, or to count to three at the stop signs to which Lilly sighed dramatically each time.

 

“Logan’s over,” Lilly said. “But we can go to my room. They’re playing video games anyway.”

 

“Okay,” Veronica said.

 

In Lilly’s room, with the door locked, Veronica told her. Lilly sat behind Veronica and braided the strands of her sweaty, knotted hair.

 

“Do you think they’re going to get divorced?” Veronica asked.

 

“It doesn’t look good,” Lilly said. “Sorry V. Wait, don’t move.” Lilly pulled at a knot and worked it free with her fingers. “You need a haircut. Do you see this?” She held Veronica’s hair in front of her face. “These are split ends.”

 

“Maybe on the weekend,” Veronica said.

 

“He could make her go to AA.”

 

“She’d never do that.”

 

“Maybe your mom and Logan’s mom can go together,” Lilly said with a scoff and released Veronica’s hair. “Now go shower because my room is starting to smell like sweat, and not in a good way.”

 

Now, as she returns the water bottle to the refrigerator, Veronica can’t find the words to describe how alone she feels, but maybe it is this: even after a year, she is still surprised that Lilly is dead, that she is living in a world that Lilly Kane is not a part of.

 

 

 

 

4.

 

When Veronica returns home from the hospital, too tired to think, Lilly is waiting for her on the steps.

 

“You look like shit, Veronica Mars,” Lilly says.

 

Veronica smiles as she climbs the stairs to the apartment.

 

“Take a look in the mirror,” Veronica says back as she unlocks the front door.  “Your head is still bleeding. It’s been over a year. You should take care of that.”

 

Lilly laughs with her old laugh and it doesn’t sound hollow like Veronica imagined it would, coming from a dead girl, coming from a body that isn’t a body.

 

Lilly follows Veronica inside. In the bathroom, she sits on the toilet as Veronica washes her face and brushes her teeth. They trade places and Lilly examines her pores in the mirror as Veronica uses the bathroom.  Veronica stares at herself for a long time until and Lilly begins dividing a portion of Veronica’s hair into three chunks.

 

“This piece is charred,” Lilly says.

 

“It’ll grow back,” Veronica says, but she closes her eyes and she can feel Lilly tugging at her scalp, the feeling of it making her warm inside.

 

When Veronica climbs into bed in her clothes, Lilly lays next to her, the way they used to when they were small, shoulders touching as they looked around the room and named shadows: _it’s a stuffed bear – god Veronica, what are you five?, what about that one the looks like a knife? It’s my soccer trophy._ Veronica hears her own breathing, but she feels Lilly’s presence like a shadow, almost feels the warmth of her.

 

“I’m really glad you’re alive,” Lilly says, just as Veronica is falling asleep.


End file.
